4 out of 5 dentists recommend this WordPress.com site

Monthly Archives: April 2014

We always talk of planning for success and achievement, but due to carelessness or some other reasons we may land in failure, in spite of planning. It is preferable to call it planning for failure. Once a group of five persons planned to travel together by train to a destination, but these persons were coming to railway station, from two different locations, in the same city. One group started by Taxi sufficiently in time as per their point of view, but just before the railway station, there was a big traffic jam and they were unable to make any headway for quite some time, in spite of all efforts. Since all the confirmed five tickets were with this group, the complete group was about to miss the train, even though the group of other three persons had already reached the Railway station. Due to the luggage & distance involved, this group could not leave the taxi and walk down to the Railway station. With God’s grace this taxi could just reach the railway station three minutes before the departure time of the train. Fortunately their coach was just opposite the main gate of the Railway station, they could board the train and then immediately the train departed from the station. One of my friends had the habit of planning in such a way that he would reach barely five minutes prior to the departure time of the train. He would thus generate enough tension for the car/taxi driver and others concerned and generate possibilities of failure. Sometimes he would just board the train and the train would start moving at that point of time. But I do not know for what reason(s) he could not or would not change his habit. In another case, a person was to get down from the train in the night, at his destination station, but he did not make any arrangements to get up and detrain at the required station in time. He just woke up at a railway station and enquired from his co-passengers if his destination station had come, which indeed had come some time back and the train was about to start again there from, to continue the journey. He decided to collect his items/luggage in a hurry & detrain, which he did, but sadly, he was badly injured in this adventure. For similar reasons of being involved in a traffic jam, one of my friends reached the venue of a meeting, he was supposed to participate in, ten minutes after it was over, resulting in his non-participation in the meeting. Sometimes one of my friends, delays the sending of some important e-mails for some reasons, like obtaining some new and creative ideas in this intervening period. But sometimes this backfires and such a planning fails, as at the time planned, there may be problem with laptop, server, service provider or power supply etc. & sending of e mails may get delayed for quite some time.

One friend of mine visits a dispensary where the timings are 800 AM-100 PM and 130 PM-245 PM. There are number of activities involved in the process at the dispensary like taking token number, consultation with the physician, carrying out X-ray if required, taking of injection or dressing if required, testing of BP if required, collection of prescribed medicines from the medicine store etc. There are queues at every place and it takes quite a bit of time to complete the process. In case one reaches the dispensary around 1130 AM-1200 Noon, it is possible that it may not be possible to complete some portion of the activities and one may have to wait for the lunch break of 100-130 PM to be over. Also after 130 PM, the time available is inadequate. It has been observed that the number of patients in the slot 800 AM-1000 AM is less. The authorities of the dispensary advise the patients to come in this slot. But accepting this suggestion is a big question mark. Some people take it lightly and just shrug it off. So if one is not considering all these points, it may amount to planning for failure. Generally for effective time management, one is advised to make “to do” lists before proceeding for “doing” the works. One person made the list on a plain paper and kept in his shirt pocket. Then he travelled by bus for completion of various planned works, but due to the effect of the wind flow, this list flew out of his pocket, bus window and was out on the road in a jiffy. As it was not possible to get the bus stopped and to travel backwards for its retrieval, he lost the “to do” list. So it was failure on his part. He should have kept it in his pent pocket or in a pocket diary or some such thing, to prevent its loss in this manner. Therefore it goes without saying that, planning should not be done for failure.